Race knives & Timber Scribes
Well GAM AND SCOTT have caused me to leave my cozy library under the porch!!!!
There goes my record for the longest lived dweller below the clattery porch
boards..
 Because the two tools under discussion are among the favorites in my
accumulations, I will sally forth on my research on the subject!

Did not find anything in Moxon 1703, so start with what Joseph Smiths
Explanation or Key 1816 has for us. Only one FOLDING RACE KNIFE / BLADE.

 R. Timmins & Sons, Birmingham pattern book C.1845 portrays 16 FIXED BLADE
TIMBER SCRIBES!! All with fixed points for making circles. Philip Walker states
in The Victorian Catalogue or Tools for Trades & Crafts “concerning the timber
scribes, also known as race knives, were designed to cut shallow circular &
straight grooves into a wooden surface. They were used by coopers & other
trades to mark their work with letters and numbers.”

 My 1896 Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co. catalogue shows picture of FOLDING KNIFE as
a race knife, and a picture of a FIXED BLADE/ POINT as a timber scribe. I
PERSONALLY AGREE WITH THIS CALL...

 Chas. A. Strelinger 1897 catalogue Woodworking Tools, shows a FIXED POINT &
GROVER, calling it a race knife or timber scribe! BOO.

 R. A. Salaman Dictionary of Tools C. 1700 -1970 says “  Timber Scribes: ( race
knives; scorer; screives or scrieve hook; scriving knife; skiving iron; raze
knife.) The simplest type consists of a steel blade with the end bent round to
form a sharp gouge like cutter; This excavates a groove (or Race) when pulled
toward the user. Others incorporate a central spike and a second cutter for
making circular grooves, and an additional DRAG-KNIFE for scribing numbers and
letters. They were used by foresters, timber merchants, shipwrights, coopers,
and other tradesmen to inscribe  serial numbers, letters. or code marks on
timber and wooden objects. Medieval carpenters used  ascribe (or a v- shaped
chisel) to mark the members of a wood-framed building. This was done to ensure
that when the parts of the frame were transported to the site for erection each
tenon would be fitted into the mortice for which it was intended.
 Special uses. Shipwrights, who commonly call this tool a Scrive Hook, use it
for marking out the plan of the ships frame on the Scrive Board. The drawings
are ‘layed off” in full size on this board, which occupies the greater part of
the floor. Since they are frequently walked over, any markings less pertinent
than an actual incision on the face of the board might become obliterated.
Coopers sometimes use a Timber Scribe for cutting a croze groove in very small
casks. A large size of Timber Scribe is used for rubber tapping.

 A. Sellens Dictionary of American Hand Tools states: Timber Scribes: ( also
called  gaugers; marking iron; race knife and timber groover. A tool used to
cut an identification mark in the end of a log or plank.

 William Marples; Sheffield 1909 Catalogue shows both FIXED, FOLDING  AND
ADJUSTABLE, under the title  TIMBER SCRIBES showing both fixed and folding!

 My 1927 Winchester catalogue has one FOLDING race knife 3 5/8’ long. It is
called a Lumberman’s race knife..

 In 1929 Henry Mercer  wrote in Ancient Carpenters’ Tools, RACE KNIFE “the
lumberman’s  little two- or three- pronged timber scribe or scorer used to
register tallies, numerals, crosses, circles, etc. on log ends, balks or boards
for selling them, or otherwise to mark the parts of worked up material in
assembling it into framework. The fixed point of this tool will form a centre
of a circle inscribed with its hinged scoop point, while the fixed scoop, also
used singly, cuts hollow channels. The race knife was used by coopers to mark
barrels or barrel parts, or by lumbermen to scribe or number balk or log ends,
or by carpenters to register junctions for heavy framework. A simpler form of
this tool ( see “Race Knife,”  Knight) consists of a single, steel scoop-point
fixed in a wooden handle.

John Horsley in Tools of the Maritime Trade states a RACING KNIFE was a small
knife used for marking lines with a cut- known as racing, whether done with a
knife, point of a compass or any other point. I have know for some time that
shipwrights carved a line around the ship and filled it with white lead to
denote the full capacity line, if not heeded you were on your own or on the
bottom of the bay!

 So in conclusion me thinks that a RACE KNIFE FOR THE MOST PART IS A FOLDER AND
A FIXED POINT IS A TIMBER SCRIBE! The uses of either were used by Electricians,
Coopers, Shipwrights, Carpenters, Barnwrights Bridgebuilders and Foresters.
 Then to confuse things even more there is the lowly BARK BLAZER;-) REGARDS
ibjb

> Archive: http://www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~cswingle/archive/
> To unsubscribe or change options, use the web interface:
>     http://galoots.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=oldtools